The Hard Way Is Just As Easy
by Grand Phoenix
Summary: When anything goes, the gloves come off. (Or, the Deathlord has a way with dealing with troublesome animals where all else fails.)[Legion-era, pre-Nighthold]


**Notes1:** I needed something light and fluffy to write after _Put Out the Dark_ , and I've been compiling the one-shots on the AO3 into separate series in the meantime. One of them concerns the Deathlord Albani from _Even the World Wants You to Overindulge_ , and I've been wanting to write something about that bunny-eared, cloud cuckoolander so I whipped this up over the past two days to add to the Bunny-Eared Deathlord series over there.

Like the one-shot that preceded this, it's an adaptation of the World Quest "Aw, Nuts!" that's often found in Val'sharah. Although it's never stated who spread all those acorns throughout Lorlathil, some people on WoWHead believe it might be Celestine herself due to the puns she drops upon the quest's completion. But I think this way is better; it'd surely stop those squirrels harassing the Dreamweavers to the point they'd have to call on all order hall champions - ranging from the Highlord of the Silver Hand to the Deathlord of the Ebon Blade - to perform such a menial, tedious task during a global, alien invasion.

* * *

"Outta the way!" the druid yells, and really, Albani has to give the guy credit—and plenty of balls—to be saying that to a death knight. He should be lucky she's one of the more nicer, noble Knights of the Ebon Blade; otherwise, he'd be on the receiving end of strangulation, and air is very precious for living elves, humans, and all sorts of people like him. Albani wishes she could breathe again; any imitation she makes gives off a puff of air frosted in icicles, but that's infinitely better than exhaling copper or bad breath riddled with disease and gingivitis.

Still, she moves out of the way for him—steps to the side, as a matter of fact, and his feline body sails past her to belly-flop right onto the ground where the squirrel had just been minding its own business not two seconds ago. "Oh, Mother Moon!" he groans, once he picks himself up. "Where'd the little bastard go?! Did you see 'im?"

She shrugs. "I'm afraid not, sir druid."

"Dammit! Why do they all have to look the same? Why, when I get my hands on the fool that set these vermin loose, I'm gonna—there you are! Come here!" The druid twists sharply to his left, ass sticking out for a brief second before it conforms with gravity and realigns itself with the rest of his body, and then he's charging across the lawn toward the fences lining the area.

There are people everywhere, from the little folk like the goblins and dwarves to the giants like the trolls and the giants. Running around, jumping, sliding, face-planting, or getting yanked through the air with the help of a friendly priest as they bodily throw themselves off the tops of buildings. Meanwhile, the squirrels are doing the same thing: running, chirping, squeaking indignation and mischievous laughter as men and women alike crash into walls, poleaxe themselves on the guardrails (as the druid just did), or losing their balance so as to fall into the pond swarming with mossgill perches and silver mackerels. Some of them were even getting pelted on the back of the head—and extremely hard—with acorns from the squirrels that had run up the trees on the other side of Lorlathil.

This is the busiest it's been since the Legion decided to drop everything and the kitchen sink onto Val'sharah last week. Except this time it's covered in pine cones, acorn shells, dead fish (oh dear gods, _the fish_ ), broken birds' nests (which are much too big to belong to simple, normal birds), and random jewelry (Tiffany Cartier's blood pressure would go so high she'd be the first person to fly without magic or technology) instead of scorched earth and pieces of infernals that were blown from their trajectory by fire mages summoning literal balls of meteoric fire from the Great Dark. The sight leaves a slightly warm feeling in her cold, almost completely numb heart; it must be what it feels like to be happy after a nice warm bowl of chicken noodle soup on a rainy day.

"Move, woman! I can't see!" someone else cries: a big, hulking tauren—and wow, do people have a lot of spirit today. But Albani is in a good mood; 'peachy-keen' as the Underbelly guards would say after she presents them with a bag loaded in gold, so she walks in a semi-circle just in time for him to roll past her in a ball of fur, horns, and spike-studded armor that kicks up clods of dirt and grass into the air. He's lying on his shoulder, groaning in pain. Somewhere above him a squirrel chatters in rapid-fire teeth clicks and lobs an acorn that scores home right on the nose, to which he yelps and clutches it. Well, his face, really; those hands could cover her whole head and rip it off her shoulders if he has the strength for it.

(And that's if he can even get close enough to her. It'd certainly be worth the challenge, but resources are finite and so are adventurers. Val'sharah really ought to invest in hiring more Illidari. Those fellows are practically immortal, but being environmentally friendly is certainly not on their job resume. She's seen the way Jace's armaments blew up the coast way back in Azsuna, the way all the felhunters and wrathguards, sea lions and cursed queenfish were flying through the air-)

"I don't believe this!" Celestine exclaims, and Albani is jarred back into the present to look upon the worgen woman's wonderfully alive eyes. "Someone's got those squirrels riled up all over again!"

"They sure are pissed," Albani says. "Where did you say you moved all those acorns to, again?"

"The Lunarwing Shallows! At the very least, it would put a stop to all the trouble the Thistleleaf thorndancers were causing."

"What happened to them?"

"Run right out of the place, they were! And thank goodness for that; those poor faerie dragons can finally get some peace and decent shut-eye now."

"That's great, Miss Celestine."

"That's just it, dear. It lasted all of one whole day. The squirrels chased the faerie dragons out, too."

"Oh my."

"Oh, indeed! And now the perpetrator, whoever that is, decided to round them all up and bring them right back to where it all started!"

"I think the person must've struck them a serious bargain for them to wreak this much havoc."

"That would warrant possibly upsetting the balance of the natural cycle permanently?"

"These look like really good acorns." Albani stoops down and snatches one into her hand. "I'd wager you could make a lot of jelly and coffee out of these." As she's talking, the acorn gains a film of frost that covers it in seconds.

Celestine sees this and pulls a face. Albani doesn't take any offense. Cold acorns don't taste great, anyway, but Moondrift loves the hell out of them. Perhaps she should pocket some later, when the chaos dies down. "I suppose we could...but we can't have the squirrels rebel! Property damage is one thing. Slighting them a second time where the violence will escalate again? So much life has been needlessly lost already!"

"There will be more of that soon if something's not done."

"Anything is better than killing those cute, little, terrifying squirrels!" says Celestine, and casts a worrying look at the state of Lorlathil's wrecked lawn and spell-blackened walls (most of them, that is; one or two buildings have holes eaten through them, including the Traveler's Den).

Albani flicks her gaze around the area. There are squirrels on the fence posts, on the rooftops, scurrying back and forth in the shadows of the building thresholds, climbing up trees to avoid angry adventurers slamming face-first into them. They either have the acorns lodged between their teeth or curled up in their tails, and when they've put a good distance between themselves and the people below they lob them with a strength and precision that's scarily impressive.

She looks at the acorn in her hand, already a solid block of ice, then up at the squirrels. "Anything?"

"If it gets them to stop, I'm all for it!"

Albani nods. Unzips the rune bag buckled at her hip, drops the acorn inside, and zips it back up.

Her blood sings the sweetness of courtesan's sonnets, and it hits a crescendo when she draws Frostreaper and Icebringer into her hands.

"Miss Albani?" Celestine asks, startled. "What in heavens are you-"

"Okay, you little shits," the Deathlord rumbles, dangerously low. Her eyes blaze an inner blue light. The winds pick up around her, from a slight breeze to a full-on squall, and in seconds the temperatures drop and everything is spread in a fine layer of frost: the greensward, the wooden shingles, the carved fence posts, the pond of mossgill perch. Northrend's breath slows the adventurers to a stop, shouting alarm and doubling over in shock, and each of them turn to look at her with varying degrees of dread, confusion, and the sudden realization of what's about to unfold.

(Even now, far away atop the lonely apex of the Frozen Throne, the man who had once been Bolvar Fordragon cracks open ember-riddled eyes and reaches for the source of power that roars through his battered body as the red dragonfire once did so long ago. And when he finally grazes the barest fringes of his champion's presence and gets a glimpse of where she's at, all he manages to utter is a flat, disbelieving _"What."_ )

"STAY STILL!" she shouts, and points Frostreaper at them. The winds bend, contort, and then surge forward in a solid, icy blast that splashes over the lawn. Adventurer and townsfolk and squirrel alike yelp and try to avoid it, but it's a futile effort. Most of them are caught in it and are either knocked to the ground, pushed up against the walls, or thrown over the fence posts in rime and chains that bind them down.

The squirrels that managed to not get hit come out of hiding and chirrup angrily. A few even sound like they're laughing.

"Miss Albani!" Celestine exclaims, looking up from her bindings. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the worgen-lady's fur is coated head to toe in snowflakes and frost. "What are you doing-?!"

Albani shuts everyone up—and stops every heart from beating for a space of a breath—with a single word: "SINDRAGOSA!" She points Icebringer. "COME FORTH! LET LOOSE YOUR WRATH!"

The winds pick up again—louder, stronger, until they're screaming. Then the shape starts taking form: large, draconic, and growing larger very, very quickly.

Celestine's jaw drops, ears folding back. "Oh. My-"

Sindragosa roars again, then there is only pure white.

* * *

When Albani comes to five minutes later, feeling floaty and the blood-rage sated, it's to Lorlathil gripped in the throes of a beautiful, white, winter wonderland. It's a silent photograph of a window in time, of halcyon days from bygone years that could be found in a family album or the Historical Guide to Eversong Woods that's free and available to all customers and foreign visitors that come and go from Thoradin's Wall way in the south. Better yet, she thinks, it's best suited on one of those cheap, five silver postcards one could buy at the market during Winter Veil season when Pilgrim's Bounty hasn't quite been ushered off the store shelves yet.

It brings to mind a memory: a little girl, no older than four, toddling out of her house in an over-sized winter coat, her gloved hand dwarfed by her mother's. Fairbreeze Village has been welcomed with a rare blizzard that positively slammed the region in a good six inches; usually it's only the cold and dampness that stays throughout Eversong winters, like arthritis in the bones. But little Albani doesn't know about the pangs that come with the longevity of a mortal lifespan; she sees herself now, tilting her face back so she can get bombarded with big, fat snowflakes that just won't stop falling. But that's okay because her and Mother are going to make the Best Snowman in the World, and that was all that mattered.

The fire in the cockles of her heart don't quite blaze. They don't even let off so much as a flickering spark, but that brief, ephemeral feeling is more than enough to compensate.

"Perfect," she says, smiling. Footsteps behind her, a wicker, and Albani turns to see Moondrift come up behind her. "Hey, boy. Want an acorn?" The horse neighs approval and tosses his head, so she digs through her bag, takes out the ice cube, and holds it palm-flat for him to take. "Good boy. Hope I didn't scare you with that." She rubs his snout when he finishes, to which he presses into with a soft snort.

Ice shatters off to her right, and then there's a colossal, wheezing rasp, like an old steamboat trying to get its engine going after being neglected for many years. Celestine breathes, chest rising and falling in quick, shallow pants, stumbling forward on shaking legs that threaten to give out. Arms wrapped around her for warmth, she comes over to Albani and nearly trips over her feet, though the Deathlord catches her in time and sets her aright. "Are you okay?" she asks the worgen-lady.

She wonders if she heard her and if she should repeat herself. Dragons are a very noisy lot, but Sindragosa has that kind of voice that when she wants to be heard people from the next city-state over are going to _hear her_ whether they like it or not. No matter what Albani does, the dragon just won't listen. She can only hope Celestine—anyone, for that matter—didn't accrue permanent hearing damage.

The worry's banished when Celestine speaks through chattering teeth. "Wh-Wh-What did you do?"

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"What d-d-do I mean? Miss Albani, you f-f-froze all of Lorlathil!" Celestine huffs, air steaming from her mouth in a whirling cyclone. "All of it! E-Everyone! Everyth-th-thing!"

Albani blinks. "Yes. And?"

"That wasn't what I had i-i-in m-mind!"

"But you said 'anything', and no one was making any progress. Something had to be done."

"So drastically?!"

"You weren't getting anything done. Besides, it's just frost magic. They'll thaw out in a bit."

"And the sq-squirrels?"

"They'll live, and they will know better than to try and run amok again." As she says this, one of the small, rodent-sized statues (the occupant's face frozen in a rictus of wide-eyed, jaw-dropping shock) tips over on its side. It doesn't break, something that makes Celestine gape and Albani to take notice with a blase air. "Trust me on this."

Celestine stares at the squirrel statue, and then glances around at all the adventurer, dryad, and cat druid statues in no small amount of horror and worry. "I-I-If you s-s-say so."

* * *

 **Notes2:** Don't worry, everyone lives; it really is frost magic. However, as of _Battle for Azeroth_ , Albani and Moondrift have been banned from Lorlathil (and probably all of Val'sharah) indefinitely (not that that stops them from fighting The Good Fight; there are demons and Nightmare creatures to fight, after all!)


End file.
